Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 16 (IANS) Defending champions Rajasthan were the only team to register a victory on the final day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Division matches after thrashing Saurashtra by 229 runs Friday.

Rajasthan, playing at home, started the fourth day at 169/1 and declared their second innings at 241/4 courtesy Aakash Chopra (98) who fell two short of registering his 29th first-class hundred.

Chasing 372 for victory, Saurashtra were bundled out for 143, mainly thanks to a six-wicket haul from medium pacer Sumit Mathur.

At Eden Gardens, Kolkata, Manoj Tiwary’s brilliant 187 enabled Bengal to overhaul Delhi’s first innings total of 392. Bengal declared their innings at 397/9 and in the process received three points keeping their hopes of staying in the Elite division alive.

Bengal, who are tied at eight points with Gujarat at the bottom of the table in Group B, will face Baroda next.

At Delhi, Railways stayed in hunt of making it to the knockout stage by restricting Orissa to 331 in the first innings, courtesy former Indian spinner Murali Kartik who had figures of 3-74.

A valiant 95 from Paresh Patel could not save Orissa from getting relegated to the Plate Division.

Brief scores (Elite Division):

Group A:
At Delhi: Railways 379 all out and 113/2 in 51 overs (Shreyas Khanolkar not out 50, Nitin Bille 31; Basant Mohanty 1-12) vs. Orissa 331 all out in 150.1 overs (Paresh Patel 95, Subhrajit Sahoo 70; Ashish Yadav 2-27, Sanjay Bangar 2-51, Murali Kartik 3-74)
Result: Match Drawn

At Lucknow: Mumbai 414 all out and 11/2 (Piyush Chawla 1-8) vs. Uttar Pradesh 312 all out in 95.5 overs (Bhuvneshwar Kumar 62, Suresh Raina 58; Ramesh Powar 5-69, Dhawal Kulkarni 2-100)
Result: Match Drawn

At Bangalore: Punjab 357 all out and 274/8 decl in 87.2 overs (Mayank Sidhana 73, Uday Kaul not out 100; Neravanda Aiyappa 4-70) vs. Karnataka 281 all out and 157/1 in 34 overs (Robin Uthappa 68, KB Pawan not out 57; Rahul Sharma 1-42)
Result: Match Drawn

At Jaipur: Rajasthan 396 all out and 241/4 decl in 70 overs (Aakash Chopra 98, Hrishikesh Kanitkar 52; Jaydev Unadkat 2-45, Sandip Maniar 2-91) vs. Saurashtra 265 all out and 143 all out in 56.5 overs (Jaydev Shah 35; Sumit Mathur 6-33, 2-49)
Result: Rajasthan won by 229 runs

Group B:
At Kolkata: Delhi 392 all out and 186/3 in 57 overs (Puneet Bisht 57, Mithun Manhas not out 52; Ashok Dinda 2-43)vs. Bengal 397/9 decl (Manoj Tiwary 187, Sourav Ganguly 50; Pradeep Sangwan 5-107, Parvinder Awana 2-118)
Result: Match Drawn

At Ahmedabad: Tamil Nadu 698/8 decl and 100/0 in 14 overs (Abhinav Mukund not out 42, Murali Vijay not out 57) vs. Gujarat 539 all out in 146 overs (Manprit Juneja not out 201, Priyank Panchal 80; Sunny Gupta 3-86, Aushik Srinivas 3-176)
Result: Match Drawn

At Rohtak: Madhya Pradesh 487 all out vs. Haryana 126 all out and 346/7 in 135 overs (Prateek Pawar 84, Sunny Singh 76; TP Sudhindra 3-83)
Result: Match Drawn